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To be nonchalant is a peculiar gift but Ghostpoet executes it with perfect precision. You’d think that the pressures of making a successful follow-up LP to his critically acclaimed debut ‘Peanut Butter Blues And Melancholy Jam’ would dwell heavy on his mind, yet the Coventry native isn’t breaking a sweat or having sleepless nights like some Vietnam veteran. For the gentleman born Obaro Ejimiwe, his demeanour reads ‘business as usual’.

Recording his new LP at Press Play Studios in South London, which is owned by Stereolab’s drummer Andy Ramsey, Ghost explains: “I was in between Coventry and London, now I’m here and the world has changed from the time I made the last album.” Despite the huge adjustment he maintains that it’s “all the same in a sense of it’s still just making music, regardless of the location.”

“I still want to create great music and that’s the only thing that comes to mind,” he continues, “be it by myself or with other people. I don’t want to say I’m in any particular creative time zone, area or mental space. It’s a continuation of what I’ve been trying to do for the past two-to-three years really.”

One significant addition to the upcoming album is in its guest features, which include the likes of Lucy Rose, Charles Hayward and the legendary Tony Allen. “It was great; he came in and I told him ‘Do what you want’,” he says when it came to working with the iconic Afrobeat drummer. “I’m not going to tell Tony Allen to do anything. I’m a massive fan of Fela Kuti and just being in the same room with someone connected to Afrobeat history it was just a joy to be around and learn from him.”

Look out for Ghostpoet’s second LP out in April this year.

Words: Jerry Gadiano
Photography: Samuel John Butt

Album Title: TBARelease Date: April 2013Recorded: Press Play Studios, Bermondsey, South LondonSongs Include: TBAFact: His second LP is the first one that he’s recorded in a studio. ‘Peanut Butter And Melancholy Jams’ was recorded mostly at his house in Coventry.